Turkey‘s president has condemned Thursday’s attack on a mosque in the Greek Cypriot administration. “Unfortunately, Greek Cypriots always do these kinds of things. It was nothing but provocation during the EU leaders‘ summit,” Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told reporters following Friday prayers in the metropolis of Istanbul.

Turkish-EU ties were a major topic at the two-day summit, which concluded on Friday, including frictions over the divided island of Cyprus.

The mosque, in the village of Episkopi, was vandalized by nationalist Greek slogans along with the Greek flag and a Christian cross drawn on its walls and doors. The island’s decades-long division was triggered by a putschist drive for enosis, or union with Greece, and ethnic violence targeting the island’s Turkish population.

ISTANBUL CONVENTION, VACCINE DRIVE

Turning to Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention last week, Erdoğan said the step was completely legal.

The 2011 convention seeks to prevent violence against women, but Turkish officials say domestic legislation already provides women ample protection, while other sections of the pact are contrary to Turkish values.

On Turkey’s ongoing COVID-19 vaccination drive, the president said that it is expected to be completed by May or June.

Talks are also underway to buy Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine, in addition to other vaccines in the pipeline, Erdoğan added.

Ethnic attacks starting in early 1960s forced Turkish Cypriots to withdraw into enclaves for their safety.

In 1974, a Greek Cypriot coup aiming at Greece’s annexation led to Turkey’s military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence.

The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was founded in 1983.

DNA

Karachi, 26 March 2021: The Karachi Literature Festival, which was founded in 2010, organized by the Oxford University Press (OUP) is back with its12th edition. Keeping the precautionary measures due to COVID-19 pandemic this year, the literary festival is entirely being held digitally. Bank of Punjabas a lead sponsor for the event. As per the yearly tradition, Getz Pharma will be giving away literary prizes sponsored by them in the following categories: Urdu Prose, Urdu Poetry and English Fiction.

The theme of this year`s Festival is: Imagining New Frontier. With the focus on ‘Living in a new reality’, the virtual edition of KLF is bringing forth thought-provoking discussionson a world post-Covid pandemic.

Arshad Saeed Husain, the Managing Director of Oxford University Press Pakistan said, “The pandemic has compelled us to imagine new frontiers of medicine, vaccines, digital learning and working from home. The pandemic has brought world closer together to find out of the box creative solutions. Vaccines have been developed in record time, schools have overcome lock downs through technology and use of electronic mediums.  We need to re-imagine safe work environment whether in office, home or in schools. The world is already re-structuring delivery methods with digital and blended tools of learning”.

The aims of this Virtual Edition of KLF remain the same as previous KLF’s: to developinteraction between writers, intellectuals, and artists within Pakistan and acrossborders, cultures, and languages, and to nurture and promote books and inculcate the habitof reading. Despite the pandemic, this Virtual Edition ofKLF will continue to put Pakistan on the mapas a country rich in culture, creativity, and exchange of ideas and opinions. KLF bringstogether and celebrates Pakistani and international authors.

The Keynote address was delivered by Vali Nasr, an Iranian-American academic and author specializing in the Middle East and the Islamic world. He served as Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. from 2012 to 2019.

The Virtual Karachi Literature Festivalwill be a 3-day event starting on Friday, 26 March and will conclude on Sunday 28, March 2021. It will feature more than 140 speakers including, Zehra Nigah, Tarik Ali, Maleeha Lodhi, Ben Okri, Ahdaf Soueif, Victoria Schofield, Ishrat Hussain,and Anita Weiss to name a few, who are representing 12 different countries i.e. including Pakistan, UK, USA, Australia, Bangladesh, Iran, Egypt, France, Germany, Dubai, India, Kenya. There are 42 sessions with debates/discussions, talks, mushairas (poetry recitals) in both Urduand English, book launches, and readings on subjects such as education, Covid-19,science fiction, and current affairs have been lined up for the Festival.

Victoria Schofield’s book Fragrance of Tears: My Friendship with Benazir Bhutto was launched. There were sessions on Cartooning, Counter-Revolutionary Wave in the Arab World, Anti-Colonialism, conversation with Paul Harding and a dedicated session on Shams Ur Rehman Farooqi, an eminent Urdu laureate.

While the roots of KLF are nourished by the rich traditions of our heritage, KLF will look forward to the future and explore new writings, new trends, and new technologies,and provide a platform for younger authors and scholars.

Please join us online for the 12th Karachi Literature Festival for an enjoyable experience.

ISLAMABAD, MAR 26 (DNA) – A Special NCOC Morning Session was held on 26th March 21 to take a review of rising disease trend.  Asad Umar chaired the session. Provincial administrations were asked to ensure strict implementation of NPIs and violators must be dealt with strictly.

Major violations are reported from transport sector, wedding, restaurants, commercial activities and public gatherings.

A Special NCOC session under Chairperson NCOC will be convened tomorrow in the wake of alarmingly rising disease trend specially in Punjab, KP and ICT. CM Punjab, CM KP and Commissioner ICT are invited to attend the session via video link.

Provincial Chief Secretaries, Health Secretaries and Home Secretaries will also join the session. Agenda includes discussion on rising disease trend, implementation status of high impact interventions and state of critical medical facilities including oxygenated beds, vents and other facilities.

Scheduling of 60 to 65 years old citizen will start from today, whereas, registration of 50 to 60 years will start from 30th March. Citizen are encouraged to get themselves registered ASP.

RAWALPINDI, MAR 26 (DNA) – General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) visited multiple Logistic installations / workshops at Rawalpindi station.

COAS visited various facilities and infrastructures of the workshops handling vast range of specialized equipment for Army.

He was briefed regarding facilities being developed, upgradation mechanism of vehicles and aviation assets and handling of central stores.

COAS during the 200th rollout ceremony of aircrafts at Aviation Base Workshop specially appreciated indigenous capability of complete overhaul of different service helicopters.

COAS lauded the untiring efforts of Commandant and Staff on their marvelous achievement, which will considerably reduce spending on imports

Earlier on arrival, COAS was received by Lieutenant General Azhar Saleh Abbasi, Chief of Logistic Staff (CLS).

ATTOCK, MAR 26 (DNA) – 52 new confirmed positive cases of Covid-19 were reported in
the district Attock on Friday raising the tally to 1520.

According to health authorities, it was the highest tally of positive
cases in a single day since the first case was reported in the
district during the month of March last year.

According to health authorities, front line health workers as well as
teachers and students of different government institutions including
colleges, boys and girls schools are among the new victims of the
virus.

Chief executive, district health authority Dr Jawad Ellahi while
giving the details has said that among these new cases, as many as 32
belongs to Attock city while 10 to Hazro, 4 to Fatehjang, 3 to
Hassanabdal, two to Jand while one to Pindigheab.

He added that it is also a single day highest reported cases from
Attock city during the last two years.

He further said that the number of active patients in the district
also surged to record number in the history of the district as 185 in
which 183 are home isolated while two other are hospitalized.

He said that as many as five suspected COVID-19 patients are also
admitted in district headquarters hospital in which three are on
ventilators.

Responding to another question, he said that the number of suspected
cases in the district are 27,671 while screening of as many as 30,923
persons have also been carried out so far.

He said that the result of as many as 95 suspected patients of the
area is still awaited while as many as 26,056 are tested negative so
far across the district. He said that so far safe burial of 91 of
patients died due to virus has performed in the district.

Responding to another question, he said 1305 patients are recovered
from this deadly virus so far.=DNA

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ISLAMABAD, MAR 26 (DNA) – The speakers at a webinar on “Non-traditional security challenges- energy and environment crises’ organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) urged the need to give an equal importance to country’s non-traditional security challenges such as energy and environment crises to ensure our national security.

They were of the view that traditional security challenges are being well tackled by our security apparatus appropriately. Now by tackling energy and environment crises as non-traditional security challenges as a nation, we may boost our overall national security paradigm.

Shafqat Kakakhel said that the nexus among climate change, energy and security is very well established. The non-traditional challenges- energy and environment crises- may troll the development. Since the industrial revolution, it brought revolution from rural to urban, from artesian based industry to big industries, from very difficult life conditions in Europe and North America where winters were seen as a punishment but energy conquered the harsh weather and also helped in improving health conditions.

Initially there was a tremendous happiness and everyday efforts were made to create more sources of energy but then somewhere in the 1980s, climatologists realized that there were changes in the climate pattern (global warming) induced by humans and use of fossil fuels

He highlighted that the efforts of scientist and different meteorological organizations, UNEP, eventually led to a political consensus on the need for actions and cooperation to handle climate change as a new threat to the international community.

Right from the beginning, the nexus between the energy and security was recognized and the emphasis was put on cleaner energy.  He said the non-traditional security threat in terms of climate change can be countered if we go for renewable and clean energy which will also address the energy shortages in Pakistan which we have been experiencing since 2008.

Thousands of factories had to be closed, schools and hospitals could not function and life became very difficult and the government had to resort to desperate moves including the use of coal-based energy.

But we have begun to realize that the solution of the environmental and climate change crises is in not abandoning energy but in developing and deploying clean and renewable energy, he added.

Ambassador Kakakhel said that the governments efforts over past several decades, particularly the clean energy and renewable energy policy of 2006 and now more recently the new energy policy, will change the entire system of how energy projects are agreed, decided and financed. The Prime minister of Pakistan while addressing the climate ambition summit had already promised that in a few decades Pakistan will get 60% of its energy from clean sources.

The government is planning to introduce electric vehicles/public transport which needs high efforts to translate it practically.

Mr Irfan Tariq, DG Environment/Climate Change said that the non-traditional security threats were there but they were neglected or not seen through policy lenses. We see the threats being imposed by climate change and environment very clearly.

I hope everyone can understand the linkage between development and nature. COVID-19, Dengue and GLOF proved that we have disrupted nature and we need to bring it back in its natural form. We face a very serious threat because the sources we use are highly impacted by climate change and when we talk about hydro, it not only threats our energy security but also poses serious threat to water and food security.

So, I would consider climate change a security threat to our energy security and that’s why we have vision and plans to move to renewable energy and it will hopefully lead us to energy security, he added. He said the government has an articulated climate action agenda in terms of the Ten Billion Tsunami Plantation Project.

He shared that the National Adaption Plan is also in place to face the climate and other non-traditional security threats to the country.

Dr Abid Qayyum Suleri emphasized the need for efforts to deal with energy crisis in a manner that would also help in addressing climate change crisis as both are intertwined and add to non-traditional security challenges which also include food security, human security and other spectrum of non-traditional security.

He was of the view that the government is giving priority to energy and environmental crises and what it needs to do is the improvement of transmission and distribution system of energy. There is a need to introduce small hydro and solar energy in the remote areas where there is energy shortage.

He said the government by strengthening institutional mechanism on energy and environmental challenges, well thought out adaptation plan and introduction of clean technologies can add value to the efforts in combating the non-traditional security challenges.

Ms. Ermeena Malik, the World Bank Consultant, discussed the general framework adopted throughout the world to measure the modern energy system. 

The three main factors of the matrix are availability of energy, affordability of energy and sustainability of energy. She said that all energy projects and assessments are basically based on these matrixes and they play a fundamental role in and becomes a sort of strategic objectives for energy supply systems in countries across the world.

Anything impacting these three components compromises the country’s energy security and if we look at each individual element, they have very close linkages. She said it is not just good enough that you have enough energy or that you are able to supply it at suitable cost but also that it is sustainable and from resources that are renewable in the long turn.

It is important to work on the transmission grid, transmission infrastructure, increasing transmission capacity. Regions like Baluchistan have the potential of renewables but are less or not exploited yet but in Sindh wind resources have been exploited to some extent. It is important to pay attention to transmission system of the country.

Mirza Sadaqat Huda called for regional cooperation in tackling energy crises and making it available for development by using renewable resources. Dr Hina Alam urged the need to addressing energy and environment crises in view of the ongoing human security challenges.=DNA

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